OK, first a mea culpa. It was dumb of me to open a call for nominations for new strips in our Sunday Comics feature and then go on vacation. I promise I did not forget about this. In fact, we've got a good list of nine new candidates, and right now you get to vote on them and the eight incumbents.

To recap, thanks very much for all of your nominations. I went through them all and examined the features to make sure they fit the criteria given when I opened the floor for discussion two weeks ago. One strip that isn't in the candidate pool deserves an explanation. Critical Miss by Cory Rydell and Grey Carter was a popular nomination, but it's also another publication's exclusive feature. We tend to feature strips that are published independently. The Escapist is Critical Miss' home and, yes, it's a great feature, you should already be reading it there if you enjoy game webcomics.

You'll be voting on a lineup of 10 comics from a pool of 17 nominees—the nine new ones you suggested and the eight features comprising the current Sunday Comics. Brentalfloss went out of business (prompting the new elections) and Virtual Shackles, which has changed authors, has not updated in more than a month, which is why they do not appear on the ballot.

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Samples from all of the comics up for a vote are presented below in alphabetical order. This is how they will display on the page if they're voted into Sunday Comics (and the authors give us permission to republish) so keep that in mind. Click the title above the strip to see more samples of each comic. After the comics, we have the ballot.

Note: ActionTrip was a longtime member of the Sunday Comics lineup before readers voted it out last winter. If we were not doing a vote-off, I'd simply swap it back in for either Brentalfloss or Virtual Shackles.

Note: This comic has published since 2006, but I'm not certain what exactly has been going on for the past six strips. It appears to be some sort of reboot. At any rate, go back through the archives to get a clearer idea of what it's about.

1. You may vote for up to 10 comics. I'd like for everyone to pick 10, but you can still submit a ballot with just one. Realize, though, we have anti-ballot-stuffing measures in place, so if you vote for fewer than 10, you may not get a second chance at voting again. That said, nothing prevents you from getting the vote out for a strip you like (or if it's one you draw.) Take to Twitter, Facebook, whatever. The more (legit) votes the merrier.

2. The top 10 vote-getters will form the lineup of the new feature. I intend to be totally transparent about this and I will publish the vote totals after the balloting closes next week. However, I'm not exposing votes or percentages during balloting. I want people to vote for the features they like, not for ones that look like they have a good shot of winning (or avoiding those that are behind in the polling.) Further, the roster in the ballot below is randomized to avoid giving any strip the advantage of being listed higher on the ballot. It also helps to ensure that you know what you're voting for.

3. The polls will be open for one week, from right now until 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 28. At that point I'll begin contacting any new comics' creators to ask for their permission to republish. I hope to announce the new lineup very soon after that. You can follow this process via the Sunday Comics tag.

That should take care of everything. Here's the ballot. Discuss your favorites, or those you hate, in the comments, but remember that these are the candidates. We're not taking any more nominees right now.